Children choose to save dogs over humans, adults chose 1 human over 100 dogs

My 6 year old twins like to come up with questions about whether you would rather die or have X happen. Recently, one asked, "I know the answer is obvious" and then asked me if I'd rather die or have a bunch of dogs die. And I was like, "I'd rather live and let the dogs die" and she and her sister were appalled. They were like, "obviously you die and save the dogs".

Children would also choose to save a bowl of ice cream over a bowl of gold nuggets. They aren't making abstract rational/moral choices, they're choosing the thing which will make them feel good. It's effectively the same question as asking them "Do you want to play with that dog, or with that person?"

I haven&#x27;t heard a great argument explaining why human life is objectively more valuable than animal life. The most common argument I hear, even from otherwise thoughtful people I know, is something along the lines of &quot;because one is a <i>human</i> and the other is an <i>animal</i>, duh!&quot; but I don&#x27;t consider that to be a persuasive argument.<p>Is it because we value organisms that are &quot;smarter&quot;? If that&#x27;s the case, is the life of a person with a high IQ objectively more valuable than the life of a person with a lower IQ?<p>Is it because we think animals aren&#x27;t capable of feeling fear, pain, anxiety, and love?<p>Is it a tribalism thing? If we assume that elephants, chimps, or whales are capable of some level of ethical reasoning, are they expected to also value human life higher than their own, or would that be considered immoral because they&#x27;re &quot;species traitors&quot;? Is the &quot;moral&quot; expectation that a chimp would value chimp life higher, a dog would value dog life higher, and a human would value human life higher?

At at least some of the age range here (5 years old) children are still trying to understand death (for example they might not experience grief and loss when a close relative dies) and it doesn&#x27;t make much sense to me to compare to someone that has developed an understanding of it.

I assume that this study (based on researchers affiliations) was done in US. I’ll hazard that results are heavily skewed by culture. At least for adult results. For example I would wager that dogs life in Asia or Eastern Europe is much cheaper than in the US. Also, I guess they didn’t include some people on ABC7 news comments section in the study who seemingly would sacrifice any number of humans to save a dogs life.

I think the true nature of death is far less well known the younger you are.

Children are often placed in a caretaker position over dogs--they sometimes help feed it, take it out to the bathroom or on walks. They don&#x27;t spend much mental energy thinking about the needs of adults, the adults tend to do that for themselves, often out of sight of the child.<p>It&#x27;s not surprising that the child would lean towards protecting the animals that they see as under their care, or needing more care than adults.

Having met and interacted with both humans and dogs over the years, I have to agree with the children here...

Children are ethically immature? Who could have guessed?!?

Interesting how an adult can still risk his own life to save animals in spite of the tendency towards human life.<p>&quot;Homeless man runs into burning animal shelter in Atlanta to save dogs and cats&quot; <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nbcnews.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;us-news&#x2F;homeless-man-runs-burning-animal-shelter-atlanta-save-dogs-cats-n1252482" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nbcnews.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;us-news&#x2F;homeless-man-runs-burni...</a>

This sorta lends weight to my hunch from watching hours of YouTube videos that mammalian toddlers have to learn to differentiate by species. Cross-species friendships between mammals from toddler to adult happen all the time in human-controlled environments, only in the wild is this more or less prohibited owing to adult animal intervention. Perhaps we can learn something about the reproduction of racial prejudice from this...

I wonder how much of this, if any, is due to the fact that a lot of children may have faced the death of an animal, perhaps a dog but maybe a hamster etc. and have yet to live through the death of a close human. If so, animals dying is visceral, real and happening. Whereas human death is this abstract that they can&#x27;t even really empathize with as it is so unsupported by any lived experience.

Scenario: You are at the Louvre Museum, suddenly there&#x27;s a big fire. You are standing next to the painting of Mona Lisa that is about to catch on fire. From the corner of your eyes you also see a small kitten collapsed under fallen rubbles and desperately and hopelessly trying to get out. Which one do you rescue first?

I know plenty of adults that would do the same and some that consider their dogs as their kids. A neighbor of mine refers to his two dogs as a father to his human sons. This is infantile thinking at its purest.

The study didn&#x27;t actually ask people to save dogs or people; it only asked people to SAY which they would save. In real life a person might save their pet over a stranger but might not say so in a study.

At the same time, I find that children are the most cruel to small animals. They want to poke, prod, take them out of the water, feed them weird things to see what happens...etc.

My general observation is it&#x27;s not so much age related but probably whoever you are most emotionally attached to at the time wins the &quot;you&#x27;re getting saved&quot; badge.

Are we sure that this isn’t generational values changing? I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a moral change associated with generation &#x2F; upbringing more than age.

Maybe the children are simply rationalising by saving those who would tend do them less harm?<p>An adult needn&#x27;t make that call as they tend to be able to look after themselves.

But what would Lassie do?<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Lassie" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Lassie</a>

I got a puppy when the pandemic hit, since I live alone and figured it&#x27;d help me cope with the isolation. This is the first pet I&#x27;ve ever owned. I thought that I would be able to &quot;love&quot; it the way other people seem to. But I can&#x27;t, and until seeing this article I almost felt like that meant I was sociopathic or something. Sure it&#x27;s cute, but I would also have no hesitation whatsoever in killing it to save the life of a random stranger I&#x27;ve never met. How are you supposed to love something when you feel that way about it? I think the way our relationship toward pets is portrayed, in western society at least, must be extremely unhealthy and immature because of this.

&gt; <i>Although they valued pigs less, the majority still prioritized 10 pigs over one human</i><p>Children are so clueless and innocent.

I wonder how many dog lives compared to human lives median adult chose.

TL;DR but from the summary it says &quot;Socially acquired&quot; which seems like a leap to me. Couldn&#x27;t it also be as simple as children don&#x27;t fully understand all the difference between themelves and animals. For example, my 3 year old probably thinks dogs can talk and pilot helicopters.

This is why we don&#x27;t give a trolley license to 6-year-olds.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Trolley_problem" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Trolley_problem</a>